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Realized I was writing every villain as the same person after one beta reader question
About 3 years ago I had a critique partner ask me why all my antagonists talked like my ex-boss from a rental office in Columbus. I laughed it off, but then I went back and checked my recent manuscripts. Every single villain had the same smug tone, the same habit of straightening their tie, even the same catchphrases. I had been recycling one nasty personality type for 14 stories without noticing. The tipping point was when a fantasy villain in a medieval setting complained about quarterly reports. Now I keep a chart of villain speech patterns and quirks, one per story, and I swap them out like I'm assigning apartments. Has anyone else been copied their villain voice from one real person and only caught it way too late?
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emery19921d ago
The chart idea works even better if you add a column for what each villain actually fears, since that changes how they threaten people and not just how they talk. Two villains can both straighten their tie, but the one who is scared of being seen as weak will do it slow and careful while the one who fears losing control will yank it tight. That one detail usually breaks the copy-paste habit faster than swapping catchphrases ever will.
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